Vital Stats

25 November 2006

New Book

I decided to go to the library yesterday and pick myself a new book. I haven't read a novel for ages, I guess the last time I read a book for leisure was before summer. So for this time, I picked up Cosmopolis, by Don DeLillo. I forgot when I read a modern classic novel before, so I picked up one again. I have read the reviews for this novel, and they say it is reminiscent of James Joyce, in that the whole novel happens in one day.

I like novels that make you think. Novels that need some dissecting to do. Not those novels whose only objective is to swoon the hearts of the readers. Oh, now I am bashing those romance novels and their intended audience.

Why is it that most of the men in the illustrations of these romance novels are half-naked and seems like survivors of a major nuclear catastrophe that their clothes are all ripped apart, showing their abs?

Novels provide the reader for escape. A temporary exit into Neverland. A temporary escape so that they would not worry about the current problems that might bug them in reality. In that sense, novels are like drugs. They provide a remedy, but not a solution. So once I finish the book, once I reach the back page, and once I turn the cover to close it, I am back at my real world, out of the fantasyland.

Blogging is the same concept. The blogger provides the reader a slice of his life. The reader on the other hand is sucked into the life of the blogger, feeling seeing his sights, hearing his sounds, touching his feelings. Depending on how good the blogger is, the reader may be sucked well and deep into the world of the blogger. The blog is like a portal to the mind of the blogger.

With that in mind, I have blogged, and will continue to do so. The portal to my mind is open.